tribulation

n : an annoying or frustrating event; "his mother-in-law's

visits were a great trial for him"; "life is full of

tribulations"; "a visitation of the plague" [syn: {trial},

{visitation}]

simulation

Attempting to predict aspects of the behaviour of some system

by creating an approximate (mathematical) model of it. This

can be done by physical modelling, by writing a

special-purpose computer program or using a more general

simulation package, probably still aimed at a particular kind

of simulation (e.g. structural engineering, fluid flow).

Typical examples are aircraft flight simlators or electronic

circuit simulators. A great many simulation languages exist,

e.g. {Simula}.

See also {emulation}, {Markov chain}.

{Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.simulation}.

(1995-02-23)